Mondays (The Wait Book 2) Page 11

  “Thanks,” I answered, not knowing what else to say. Feeling my phone buzz in my pocket, I pulled it out and saw it was Birdie calling. I let it go to voicemail noticing she’d also texted several times. Putting my phone back, I asked Blair, “So what do you do other than model?”

  She laughed. “That was my next question for you, minus the modeling part.”

  “I’m an industrial engineer for a pharmaceutical company.”

  “I’m going into engineering too,” she said.

  “What branch?”

  “Civil. I wanna build tunnels because they’re sexy,” she smiled as she divulged this interesting bit of information and gave me a wink.

  Damn. I looked down at my whiskey thinking she was the whole fucking package and then some.

  I wasn’t prepared when she stood, and I turned at the movement just in time to have a face full of tiny, shiny violet panties in my face. Sweet Jesus.

  “Pull your chair out, Beck, so we can get to know each other better,” she said with a pouty look and who was I to disobey.

  The minute I backed my chair from the table, she straddled me and said, “This is much better.”

  Now, if you’ve never had a pair of perfect purple-covered 34DDs staring you in the face, you’re definitely missing out. And you’re seriously fucking missing out when the purple part suddenly disappears leaving nothing between you and perfectly gorgeous tits staring you down.

  I’ll admit, I was feeling pretty good from the whiskey, but I wasn’t drunk. And I should’ve immediately made Blair get off my lap but I hesitated because, well, tits.

  Finally coming to my senses, I took her by the waist helping her to stand and standing myself, I handed her the bra.

  “You’re beautiful and so fucking tempting, but I can’t,” I explained.

  She laughed as she clasped her bra in the back. “It’s okay, Beck.” She spun in a circle, and her perfect ass jiggled a little as she did so. I let out a groan at the sight of it. “You sure you don’t wanna have a good time with me?”

  God. So fucking tempting. But I loved Birdie and didn’t want to screw shit up between us anymore than it already was.

  “Sorry, Blair,” I answered.

  She looked disappointed for a second and then a little conflicted before she spoke. “I’m sorry, but you seem like a good guy, so I’m just gonna tell you the truth.” I narrowed my eyes wondering what she was going to divulge. “My name really isn’t Blair and I’m not going into civil engineering.” She twisted her mouth to the side after confessing. “They tell us to read you guys then tell you what you want to hear because,” she shrugged, “we might just hit the jackpot.”

  Huh. This was all a huge fucking racket, even more than I’d thought it had been.

  “What’re you looking for, Blair, or whatever your name is?” I asked.

  “A chance.”

  Fuck. How fucking sad.

  “You seem like a smart girl…” I hesitated wondering what her real name was.

  “Bonnie. I’m Bonnie.”

  “You seem like a smart girl, Bonnie. I hope you figure that out before this shit ruins you.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Well, good luck, Beck.” She held her hand out and I shook it.

  “Good luck to you too, Bonnie.”

  I watched as she walked away, that gorgeous ass of hers getting lots of second looks as she made her way through the crowd then disappeared. I moved to where Mike was entertaining at least six girls.

  “Hey, I’m heading out,” I told him.

  He held a finger up to the girls and stepped toward me. “You sure? That chick you were with was fucking hot!”

  I chuckled. “Yeah, I’m gonna turn in.”

  He looked over his shoulder making contact with his butler guy. “Samson will take you to the limo then Lars will take you wherever you wanna go.”

  “Thanks, man. Good seeing you. We need to play soon,” I said but he was already heading back to his harem.

  I let out a laugh as I shook my head, then followed Samson outside and had Lars take me home.

  Chapter 23—Birdie

  My flight was scheduled for seven, so I was at the airport by six to check in.

  Sitting in the departure lounge, I checked my phone for the six millionth time only to see that Beck still hadn’t replied. I wondered how long he’d be mad. This was our first fight, so I guess I’d be finding out soon enough how long he could hold a grudge.

  I nibbled on the bagel and sipped at the coffee I’d gotten at one of the small restaurants in the food court as I people watched, which I’d always loved doing, wondering what kind of lives everyone had. But as I finished eating and had almost drunk all my coffee, I soon grew bored because there weren’t a ton of people in the airport at that hour. Checking my phone, I saw there was still thirty minutes before we could board, so I settled in to play a mindless game on my phone. Just then I saw the woman seated across from me stand and toss her New York Post onto one of the seats to the side then she ambled away. I got up and grabbed the paper hoping it’d help to pass the time until I boarded.

  I read several articles in the news section, feeling it was my duty to know a bit of what was going on in the world, before finally flipping to the pièce de résistance, Page Six, the gossip section. The headline read “A TITillating Evening” over a picture of a bare-breasted gorgeous girl—I had to look twice thinking she was Margot Robbie—with her nipples pixelated out, smiling at the man on whose lap she sat and whose face her boobs were about to smother.

  I read the article about what they called “reject models,” who in my eyes were just as beautiful as any model I’d ever seen. Poor girls. There’d been a fashion show last night at the 69th and I read that it had raised a lot of money for several charities. I scanned a couple other stories, “Famous animal lover under fire for dating avid hunter,” “Neil Patrick Harris outshined by co-star at premiere,” before glancing back at the photo of the Harley Quinn lookalike when something caught my eye. Looking more closely, my heart skipped a fucking beat as I realized the man in whose lap the woman sat was Beck!

  What the actual fuck?

  So that’s why he hadn’t answered his phone. He’d obviously been busy with boobs. Huh. I snapped a picture of the image with my phone then texted it to him.

  Text Message—Wed, Jan 12, 6:48 a.m.

  Me: I see you were busy last night, which is why you didn’t text or call me back. Stick to not doing either. I’m good with it

  Then I hit “send.”

  “Ms. Chapman, we’re so happy you’re here,” Mr. Solomon, co-owner of a nationally known software company greeted me when I walked into the office building. He was very tall and appeared to be in his late sixties or early seventies, and he reminded me a lot of Prince Philip.

  “Hello, Mr. Solomon. I’m happy to be here.”

  He guided me to the elevator making small talk, asking me if my flight had gone well and how the weather in New York City was. On the twelfth floor, we disembarked and he led me to an empty office where boxes of ledgers were stacked on a table.

  “As you know from our chats, we’ve somehow misplaced almost eight-million dollars.” He let out a sarcastic laugh as he pulled one of the books out of a box. “Gloria Martin, our in-house accountant, will be in shortly to assist you with any questions you may have. And please feel free to come see me in my office,” he pointed to the corner across the large cubicle area, “if you need anything else or call my secretary at extension 101.”

  He left me to do my thing and when Gloria came in. She was a lovely redhead slightly on the heavy side but she carried herself well. After introducing herself, she shook her head sadly. “I’m going to tell you right now the culprit is the CFO, James Solomon, Jr., Mr. Solomon’s only son. Neither Mr. Solomon nor his partner, co-owner Jefferson Rothwell, would listen to anything I said. As a matter of fact, I’m shocked that I still have a job as angry as Mr. Solomon was at me. But James is his only child and he wouldn’t have i
t. I’m telling you, it’ll be like a damned flare gleaming out at you when you see it. Let me know if there’s anything you need. My extension is 357.”

  She left me to it and, boy, was she right. After only thirty minutes, it all stood out like a sore thumb.

  First of all, James, Jr. was making over eight-hundred-thousand dollars a year as the company’s CFO, while his father and the other owner were being paid two-hundred-thousand each. And secondly, I’d never seen so many workers’ compensation claims in my life. It appeared that good old Junior had filed at least twenty-five false claims over the past five years and was pocketing that money as well. So not only was he stealing this money, he was costing the company hundreds of thousands of dollars in insurance payments, which was also considered insurance fraud.

  I picked up the phone receiver and dialed Gloria’s extension.

  “Gloria Martin, how may I help you?” she answered.

  “Hi, Gloria, it’s Birdie. Can I get you to come here, please?”

  “You bet.” Thirty seconds later, she came inside the office smiling and nodding. “You caught it all, didn’t you?”

  “Not to discount your or my skills, but I think a first-year accounting student could’ve caught this.” She chuckled. I looked at her and shook my head. “He’s the highest paid CFO I’ve encountered. And how in God’s name has he not been caught with all the workers’ comp claims?”

  She huffed out a laugh. “Right? I think it’s all been pure luck.”

  “Looks like it.” I let out a deep sigh knowing I had some very bad news to report. “Would you mind coming with me to talk to Mr. Solomon?”

  “Not at all,” she stated, and followed me to the large corner office. “Mr. Rothwell’s in today,” she whispered, nodding at the opposite corner office. “Do you want me to see if I can get him in there too?”

  “That would be great,” I replied, dreading having to tell such a nice man as Mr. Solomon was, that his only son was a thief.

  But that was part of my job. For the most part, I found it fun because it was challenging and sometimes even exciting when I solved the problem. But then there were times like this when what I’d found would likely break someone’s heart.

  When Mr. Rothwell entered the office, I introduced myself then we all had a seat and I proceeded to tell them the same thing Gloria had tried telling them from the start.

  After leaving the meeting, in a cab back to the Park Hyatt, I called to book a flight home the next day, thinking this had really been a wasted trip. In my hotel room, I cried. Poor Mr. Solomon. I’d felt horrible having to tell him the truth about his son but it was my job. The way his face had fallen when I’d shown him the numbers had broken my heart. And the son hadn’t even been there since he and his family were vacationing in the Bahamas with stolen money, no doubt! Ugh. Sometimes I really hated people.

  I showered and changed into jeans and my favorite NYU hoodie. It was cold, but I walked exactly one block over to a tavern where I had the best freaking char-dog in my life along with a cold beer and watched basketball on TV. It was great. When I finished, I walked the other direction, past the hotel and a block over to the historic water tower, going inside to check out the art gallery. I’d stayed until it closed at 6:30 then walked back to the hotel, but not wanting to go to my room just yet, I went up to the seventh floor and at the swimming pool sat in a lounge chair watching a couple children playing in the water while their mother looked on.

  Even though the kids were screaming as they played, I felt a simple sort of peace, which I knew was the result of the fact that I’d turned my phone off after sending my last text to Beck, meaning I hadn’t had to deal with reality. It was now in my hoodie pocket but I hadn’t felt like turning it back on. So I hadn’t.

  An hour later I finally went to my room and decided I had to face the music. Turning on my phone, I waited for the home screen to appear and wondered what would be worse: Beck having texted back to tell me he was in love with the Harley Quinn lookalike and they were running away together, or if he hadn’t texted or tried calling me back at all. I decided that nothing from him would be worse.

  When my phone was fully on, I entered the password, and pulling up the home screen saw that I had fourteen text messages and five missed calls. That was nice and all but still didn’t ease my mind because maybe none of them were from Beck.

  “Suck it up, Birdie, Jesus,” I muttered, forcing myself to hit the text button.

  I sighed in relief when I saw that every message was from Beck.

  Chapter 24—Beck

  I hadn’t heard from Birdie and was about to come unglued. I’d left at least five voicemails and texted countless times yet had gotten nothing back.

  I’d checked all the news stations to make sure no planes had crashed, that’s how worried I’d been, and I wasn’t happy that she hadn’t had the common decency to call me back.

  “Fuck!” I yelled, then got up from the couch and walked through my apartment, holding my phone and willing it to do something.

  It was eight o’clock here and Chicago was an hour behind, so maybe she’d gotten caught up at the company she’d been hired by. I decided to give it another hour before taking action. What that meant, I wasn’t sure, but if it meant calling Chicago’s finest and putting them on the case, then so fucking be it.

  On the fourth trip down the hallway and into my room, looking out the window, I noticed that her bedroom light was on. Had she flown back tonight? She’d told me she might be there through next Tuesday.

  I called her again and when she still didn’t pick up, I’d had it. Pulling on my jacket, I left my apartment and made my way to her stoop and up, where I buzzed her apartment at the door. Nothing. I tried several more times and when she still didn’t answer, I wondered if maybe she’d accidentally left her bedroom light on. That was probably it. But back at my place, I walked down the hallway to my bedroom, and opening the blind, saw that her fucking light was out.

  Something was buzzing on my chest and I swiped at it to get it to stop, then a loud clank woke me. Shit. I’d fallen asleep watching a ballgame which was now over and something else was on. I sat up feeling disoriented when it hit me that I’d been waiting for Birdie to call. Now where the hell was my phone?

  Looking around, I saw it on the floor under the coffee table and realized that’s what I’d accidentally knocked off my chest. Picking it up, I saw I had four missed calls, all from Birdie. I stood and dialed her back, pacing as I waited for her to pick up.

  “Hey,” she answered.

  “Birdie? Are you okay?”

  There was a pause before she asked, “Yes, why?”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m in Chicago. You know I flew out this morning.” She sounded annoyed. “I’m coming back tomorrow since their accountant had already known what the problem was, but I guess they just needed me to verify that she was right.”

  “Does Jaden have a key to your place? Or your parents?” I asked.

  “Yes, they all do. Why?”

  “I thought maybe you’d come home because your bedroom light was on earlier, so I went over and buzzed your apartment. But when you didn’t answer, I thought maybe you’d just left your light on. Except that when I came back here and looked, it was out.”

  “What? That’s weird. Let me call Mom and Jaden to see if they’d gone by. But I don’t know why they wouldn’t have answered the buzzer. I’ll call you back.”

  She hung up and walking back to my bedroom, I looked through the blinds to see her bedroom was still dark. Fucking weird. My phone rang a couple minutes later.

  “What’d you find out?” I asked.

  “Nobody went by! Do you think someone broke in? Or maybe the super had to get in because he smelled a gas leak? Oh, my God! This is totally creeping me out now!”

  “What time does your flight come in tomorrow?

  “I leave here at two, so,” I heard her talking to herself, calculating when she’d land.

  �
��Just before six,” I answered for her.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right.”

  “I’ll call your super tomorrow to see if he might’ve been there. If he wasn’t, you’re to come straight here when you get in and we’ll go check it out. And, Birdie? You’re staying with me and are not to go there by yourself until we get it figured out, do you hear me?”

  “You don’t have to be so bossy,” she muttered.

  “I do because I know you.”

  And that made me smile because I actually knew her well enough to know that she’d do whatever it took to get to the bottom of things, including busting down her apartment door and going in guns blazing just to find out what was really going on.

  “Beck? I just thought of something but it’s going to sound really bizarre to you, so just listen, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “I had a meeting yesterday on the tenth floor after you left. I was up there for a little over an hour and when I got back to the boardroom, Linda came by and asked what I carried for protection when I traveled because her daughter has to go to Maryland by herself this weekend. I reached inside my purse for my keys to show her the pepper spray I’ve got attached to the ring but my keys were gone. I checked my coat pockets and they weren’t there either. So thinking maybe for some ridiculous reason I’d carried them to the tenth floor with me, I went back up to check but they weren’t there either. When I came back down and went back into the boardroom, they were on the floor under the table.”

  “What are you saying?” I asked.

  “I think someone took them while I was in the meeting, made copies, but didn’t get them back in time. So when I went back up to the tenth floor, that gave them a chance, so they went to the boardroom and just tossed them in there on the floor.”

  “Are you sure they weren’t on the floor when you looked for them the first time? Like maybe they’d fallen out of your purse and were under it but you didn’t see them?”